Comment: When our friends in Sochi went out to disseminate, the rest of the people who didn’t go out arranged a “mirror” workshop, carried out the same activities and discussed the same questions. We did this as a support for our friends; we tried to be with them as a single whole.

Answer: Your concern for the success of your friends is the main thing. You created an atmosphere for yourselves that you can only dream of. What can be more spiritual and more useful for attracting the Upper Light?

Wherever our friends go out to disseminate, we are concerned for them. We feel them.  Make it so that everything will succeed for them! We are ready to give everything, only so that they will succeed. There is nothing higher than a prayer like this. Certainly everything will work out for the best for them!

If we create such a state at the Saint Petersburg convention, or in whatever other circumstances, then this is destined to succeed from the start! So, you have grown! It is called the “prayer of many” (Tfiflat Rabim) when I pray for my friend. Believe me, there is no need here for anything else!
[143003]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 1

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Question: How can we move from corporeal fear of the blows to spiritual fear?

Answer: This transition is possible only by the help of the environment. If the Creator is important to me, then the most important thing for me is not the blows that I receive but being able to bestow unto Him. Everything depends only on how important it is.

If a baby is ill, God forbid, the parents don’t think about themselves and about how they feel or about having a nice meal, but will run with him from one doctor to the next, since the most important thing for them is his health. Everything is determined by the importance of the goal.

Therefore, we have to increase the importance of the Creator, the importance of the goal, through the environment. If the goal is important, nothing worries me anymore. It is to such an extent that I constantly dream and think only about how to delight Him. It is like a baby about whom I constantly think and care about: what to do for him and how to make him feel better. My love for him obliges me.

If the environment impresses me with the greatness and the importance of the Creator, I will begin to think about how to give to Him. Then the giving to the Creator becomes my receiving because I enjoy the fact that I give to Him, that I give to the one I love.

But now the question arise as to why I am giving: Is it for my own delight or for His benefit? This is where the clarification begins. Perhaps the Creator is suddenly so important to me because I fill myself and attain the upper world through Him? This means that I am simply using Him.

I have to know that I am actually giving to Him without any self-benefit. Here I understand that I have to detach myself from any receiving for myself, from any self-benefit. It is better if I don’t know that I am giving to Him, since this fact is already a great pleasure.

If I know how much I have given Him and how much He enjoys it, then it is already a great pleasure for me. The Creator knows about me and we give to each other, we are connected, and I see that this effort is worthwhile for me. Whoever serves someone great becomes great as well.

I have to reach a state in which I don’t want to receive any reward for my giving in any way. Then I begin to look for a way to detach myself from any reward, as if I throw all my efforts into space, all my love, and don’t feel anything in return. I only ask for the power to do this and for some discernments that I am giving to the Creator, and that I am not just playing and practicing by myself.

Here I feel the desire to recognize the Creator in a spiritual form, which is detached from me, and at the same time allows me to work accurately with regard to Him. It is a very special system that allows me to detach myself from my desire to receive, from my ego, and at the same time, to use it in order to give and to bestow unto the Creator, and thus receive accurate discernments of how I should work.

This is very difficult, but this system is revealed to us; it was already created by the shattering and the corrections that come later in the upper worlds of Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya.

But the main thing is to be incorporated in the group, which will bring us to this spiritual state in practice. It makes no difference whether we read about it or how much we understand it or not. We begin to understand the Creator as a result of the practical work, as it says: “We know You from Your actions.”
[142957]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/4/14, Writings of Rabash

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 Question: What kind of fear should I feel, should I fear forgetting the Creator?

Answer: It is good if you already have a fear like this. How many times per day do you remember the Creator, if at all?

Question: That is a spiritual level, so how do we reach this?

Answer: This is through mutual guarantee, through the greatness of the importance of the Creator. The main thing is the importance of the Creator. You must arrange and organize such an environment that will strengthen this importance in you.

You yourself are simply an egoistic desire to receive, nothing more, that wants to lie still and receive pleasure without investing any effort. And suddenly you announce that you are thinking about the Creator. How can you think about Him? It is impossible. The Creator is completely opposite to my nature. So you must get the importance of the Creator from the environment.

The shattering makes us dependent on the environment, and we need to use it. If a person puts himself under the influence of the environment, this helps him and influences him. If he remembers the Creator, this means that the environment reminds him. But he must arrange and organize this environment himself.

There must be an external cause, an external stimulus, which reminds us of the Creator. This is because you never look in His direction yourself and don’t think about Him. Sometimes the Creator reminds us of Him. And in general this is what happens to us; suddenly we remember the Creator, the spiritual path. But it’s because of an awakening from above, and this is not considered to be advancement.

Or the environment reminds us about the Creator, about the path, and strengthens us with the importance of spirituality. But this is a result of our preliminary work and so this is considered to be on our account. I invested energy in the environment and the environment influences me.

Without the Creator and without the environment, by myself, I will not be raised above the ground. My nature is like that. So what is left for me is only investment in my environment or to wait until an awakening will come from above and arouse me. And in general we wait for an awakening from above. But this is the path of suffering.

The Creator awakens us several times and after that leaves. This means that a person apparently must receive a bit more suffering to become a little more sensitive to the awakening from above.
[142953]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/04/14, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What is the force of bestowal?

Answer: We do not know what it is in our world. My entire “I” is the ego or the force of reception. I do not know what it is to “bestow,” and I do not know what “neighbor” means. I can only feel my neighbor do good or bad things to me; I can express my solidarity with him, but I do not feel anything outside of me.

In other words, I represent a certain black box, and I only live through the things that go inside it and that make an impression on me.

I do not know what is happening around me. All I know is the impressions that the things around me make on me. This is why we say that we experience the entire perception of reality inside us.

I am not able to come out of myself and feel what is happening around me, as if my senses were a mile away from me. I think that I see something a mile away, but this is not true. My imagination paints everything for me.

The property that helps me feel the things outside of me (whether they exist or not) is called the property of bestowal. We do not have even the slightest degree of it.

However, when we begin to work on mutual bestowal in the group, according to the principle of “love thy neighbor as thyself,” we begin to acquire a certain need for obtaining the property of bestowal.

Only after this do I begin to read, let us say, The Book of Zohar together with the group. Through this, we evoke the influence of the force of bestowal over us.

So far, I do not know what bestowal is, but Kabbalists tell me that it is a wonderful force.

Since this book speaks of phenomena that happen outside of you, you need to read it together with the group, and, if you really want to attain the property of bestowal and you are connected with your friends above your ego, then the Light that Reforms, the force contained in the Torah, will come during the reading of The Zohar, and you will begin to acquire the property of bestowal against your ego.

As it is written, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice, for the Light in it reforms.”

Once you acquire the property of bestowal, you will begin to perceive things outside of you, that is, the upper world. The exit into the spiritual word has levels. You will be able to attain infinity to the extent of your entrance into the spiritual world.
[29400]
From the Lecture at the Study Center, Kabbalah for the Nation, “Perception of Reality” 11/23/10

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Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

Shamati #56 “Torah Is Called Indication”

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 16, Item 43

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Love for the Creator & Love for the Created Beings,” “And to Cleave Onto Him”

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We are the first generation (which is also the “last generation of the egoistic world”) that must realize the wisdom of Kabbalah and make a leap into the spiritual world. If all of the hundreds of thousands of people (or, possibly several million) who study Kabbalah around the world unify, we will definitely reach the power that will allow us to break through the border between the spiritual and corporeal world, which is called the Machsom, and attain love.

Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Last Generation”: There is a fable telling about a group of people who got lost in the desert and were suffering from hunger and thirst. One of them found an abode filled with abundance and remembered his unfortunate comrades. However, he has gone so far from them that didn’t know where they were. What did he do? He started to shout loudly and blow his horn so that perhaps his poor friends would hear his calling, come to him, and also enter this abundant temple.

We are facing the same predicament: We are lost in a frightening desert with all mankind, and we finally found a big treasure filled with riches. They are Kabbalistic texts…

And now, gentlemen, here, in the treasure chest you see before you, there lies a book where all wisdom regarding a state is explained, along with all possible paths of an individual and a society that get realized in the future.

Open these books, and you shall find there all the correct arrangements of life that will be revealed in the end of days, which will give you a good lesson in how to put everything in order today.

Although Kabbalah is regarded as science and wisdom and seems to be hidden, exalted, mysterious, and possibly even frightening (however, in recent years, these myths about Kabbalah have been dissipating), we must understand that it all speaks about unity between us. If people unify, they will begin to experience here and now through greater internal mutual connection this stream of energy flowing between them.

We are already in it, as if in the fog, but don’t feel our authentic, true condition. We need to disperse this fog, come back to consciousness, and then we will find ourselves in the world full of Light and start living eternal and complete life.

We will see all the worlds and feel that we are not only above everything that occurs in this material world, but will receive new consciousness and perception. We are yet to accomplish this, and everything depends on how much effort we will make to dive deeper and feel the bond between us.
[27249]
From the World Kabbalah Congress 2010 11/9/10, Lesson 1

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The wisdom of Kabbalah tells us that people can fulfill themselves only by passing the pleasure on to others. The problem is that people want to receive the pleasure by keeping it within himself.

However, if the pleasure was to transfer from him to someone else, and so on, and in this way spreads among everyone, it would become a never-ending flow! In addition, then you will not only experience life during these brief moments when pleasure fills you but also when it immediately disappears and leaves you empty.

So, if we would be able to connect between us into a common, endless system, when the flow of pleasure will flow constantly through us, like through the cells of our common “body,” then we would perceive the eternal life in absolute goodness that comes from everyone.

So, what is the absolute goodness? It is the continuous, never-ending, infinite pleasure!

When you connect with others this way, and pleasure, Light, and the perception of life flow through you, you give life to the entire system, like cells in a physical organism pass the essentials to one another, and thus they guarantee the existence of the organism. However, besides the animal life of our body, the realization of the human level appears in this system. This is because every one of the cells not only passes the life energy to one another, but also the desires and the thoughts.

Pleasure by itself is something abstract like electricity, which can be used according to ones’ needs: heating, cooling, creating pressure or a vacuum, and so on. In addition, when pleasure flows between everyone in an endless system like this, then everyone fills themselves with the things that they want, the things they strive for.

However, besides the sensation of an eternal and perfect life, perception of the life of the entire system appears in this system, a perception of the Creator, His level, and His plan. This is similar to the way our body, as a result of its biological function, creates the conditions for us to feel human, which is a level higher than the body itself, the animalistic level.

[28685]
From the Lecture on the Topic: “My First Convention”11/2/10

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The first stage is completely filled with Light, which comes out of the root, and it feels that it does not want to receive; this is how we get the second stage.

But then the second stage feels that this did not make it similar to the root. It may not be receiving anything, but it’s not bestowing either!

It only got worse because before I was attached to the Creator like an infant and I did everything that He wanted. I enjoyed infinitely, and even though I did it for my own sake, the Upper One was receiving pleasure from this!

Now, I supposedly got bigger and I do not want to receive from Him, but it turns out that I am not giving Him anything to enjoy, even the way an infant does, because He receives pleasure when I receive from Him.

So what have I done? I have gone even further away from Him! (And this is why the second stage is considered to be a stronger desire than the first stage, even though it does not receive anything.) It is as if I were neglecting Him…

An infant is closer to the mother than a grown child who feels independent and does not want to receive anything from her.

Then the second stage, Bina, decides that if it were to receive the Light from the Creator, He would really enjoy it; this is how we get ZAT de Bina.

The execution of this decision takes place in the third stage, in Zeir Anpin, who receives the Light for the sake of bestowal due to the strength of Bina. In other words, the upper determines this decision (Therefore it is considered that the head of Zeir Anpin is in Bina – ZAT de-Bina).

And then the fourth stage Malchut comes and sees how much pleasure there is… I am Zeir Anpin, who receives for the sake of bestowal, when I perceive the Creator and feel that I am just like Him!

I want to enjoy it both: the fulfillment that I am receiving and the equivalence with Him! I want to enjoy all the pleasures that exist in the Creator; this is called the fourth stage of development, Malchut.

A restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph) is done over this fourth stage, and we no longer receive fulfillment egoistically.

And then second restriction (Tzimtzum Bet) takes place, from ZAT de Bina to Malchut. Malchut penetrates all these desires and says: “Do not even think about reception! It is impossible to receive anything, you will not be able to!”

The fourth stage of desire penetrates the third and the second stages, and now there is a sensation in both Zeir Anpin and ZAT de Bina that any contact with reception of Light will be egoistic.

Previously, there was no feeling that the desire to receive pleasure is so opposite to the Light! But now it is there. But still this prohibition only exists because of Malchut and not because of Zeir Anpin, and especially not because of Bina.

After all, Zeir Anpin is planning on bestowing, but the question is: in which desires is he planning on doing it? Is it in the desires that he had before the fourth stage appeared or is he now planning on receiving for the sake of bestowal in the fourth stage, in Malchut?

And this confusion consequently leads to the breaking, when they were not able to understand why this is impossible. After all, if we are planning on receiving the Light for the sake of bestowal, like in the third stage of Direct Light, then this is an altruistic action.

But it turns out that the fourth stage has already penetrated these desires, and once you get to feel what Malchut is—pleasure from being equal to the Creator—you no longer can refuse it, you desire the taste. You have the fourth stage within you, and you cannot receive for the sake of bestowal!
[24824]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/25/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What should a person do if he tries to participate in everything, but he can’t always be with the group physically?

Answer: If a person wants to be with the group but cannot do so, it isn’t his fault.

Suppose I was called to serve in the army while the group is holding a convention. There is nothing I can do about that.

When another force dominates me, which of course, is also arranged by the Creator, I cannot do anything about it, I will obey. The upper providence operates on me this way, against me.

If I obey it, I don’t lose anything if I don’t participate in the convention. But this is true only if I really have done everything to be there, but because of the circumstances I cannot, because the Creator surrounds me on all sides.

At the same time, a person has to say: “I don’t accept this, but I will still be connected to the friends as much as I can. I submit to the circumstances that You have put me in, which means that being in this state is the best thing for me.”

We must agree with the Creator! But only after very serious clarification, and not by looking for different excuses to justify myself.
[142945]
From the Convention In Sochi 8/25/14, Lesson 2

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